The Wild Card

Here to overthink and overanalyze. 30-something.

[luke-thompsons]

#the woman was too stunned to speak

[platonicsource]

BRIDGERTON 4.07 – The Beyond

[negreabsolut]

Follia lunar, 1982, per Andrew Wyeth.

[saintgoodlove]

the scene where eloise walks in on penelope and francesca talking about marriage and they switch up the energy immediately is so validating to me as a single woman with married/dating friends bc that’s literally what happens. like you wake up one day to head over to meet the bestie and you get there and find that they genuinely live in another world and sometimes even just pity or infantilize you for not “understanding” their married life bc marriage is still a class signifier for women even today because we’re still judged according to our sexual status and single is still very much seen as its own form of “lower class.” there’s still prejudice there.

anyways, no one on earth can make me hate eloise bridgerton. even if she is presumptuous as hell sometimes. that is my best friend.

[stevenrogered]

The knight and the zoomer, they retire from battle, and they settle down in a small village. With each passing day, their love grows stronger. 

[buckysknifecollection]

i feel like the youth should be reminded that the point of shipping is not for a ship to become canon. the point of shipping is to collect all the canon crumbs like starved mice, run away cackling and make some fun little scenarios with them just for the hell of it.

[title]

I don’t need anything in the world, darling, but you and a toothbrush.

William Powell & Myrna Loy After the Thin Man (1936), directed by W.S. Van Dyke

[anya-chalotra]

No, I love it. I love teaching these kids, you know? I get to teach them about the miracle of life and how to... not start it accidentally. And this time, I'm in control of the grades.

STRANGER THINGS 5 Chapter Eight: The Rightside Up

[anya-chalotra]

#they're just like us fr

[djo]

‘86, baby! ‘89, baby!

STRANGER THINGS 4.01: The Hellfire Club | 5.08: The Rightside Up

[djo]

My partner in crime ditched me. But, well, as far as excuses go, he had a pretty good one.

STEVE HARRINGTON 5.08: The Rightside Up

[djo]

The bard, craving knowledge, makes his way to the Mage’s Guild of Enclave, where he spends his days in their vast libraries. Though deeply devoted to his studies, he still makes time for the occasional adventure. 

STRANGER THINGS 5.08: The Rightside Up

[nakianshuri]

I’m going to miss so many of these characters, but I started ST with Steve being the character I was most interested in, even in season 1. He just seemed to have the potential to be more than he appeared to be, and my one big hope for him, other than that he’d survive the finale, was that he’d be given a future that had him escaping the box he was put in as this dumb lovelorn rich boy.

So much of the discussion around Steve was about his love life and nothing else that I’m honestly glad he was given a career that fit him instead of that being an afterthought. I feel like we saw more about what he’s doing in the epilogue than most of the other characters. I’m also glad that his friendship with Dustin has deepened, and that he’ll have a core group of friends that he’ll grow and change with.

As a Stancy fan, do I wish we’d gotten some closure scene between him and Nancy? Absolutely. But I’ve also thought throughout this season that the triangle was more about Jonathan’s insecurities than anything to do with Steve and Nancy’s actions or feelings. And I’m good knowing that they’ll be in each other’s lives from now on.

While Stancy would have been wonderful to see onscreen again because of the chemistry between the two characters, I also felt they needed to mature individually into different versions of themselves after all they’d gone through (and in my mind potentially reconnect romantically in their 40s like Joyce and Hopper). I also find it interesting that despite their obvious differences, they’re the two characters in their group who don’t go to or complete college.

Finally, what I wouldn’t give to see a show about Steve, Nancy, Robin, and Jonathan in Philly. Dustin and Lumax can be guest stars.

I’m gonna miss these characters so damn much.

[emziess]

Steve & his kids + Hands on hips Stranger Things

[nakianshuri]

Other than surviving the finale, I keep wondering what I really would like to see for Steve as a fan of the character even in season 1.

I appreciate the show freeing Jonathan and Nancy from their relationship. I know the writers said those characters needed their “independence,” but I saw it more as them being given their freedom. Freedom from defining themselves and each other by their shared trauma alone.

Likewise, as much as I would like to see Stancy come out of this, another part of me would also like to see Steve freed from the boxes he’s been put into: namely being this dumb, lovelorn himbo who hasn’t gotten over Nancy.

This season has made it clear that among a bunch of geniuses, he’s been the one tagged as the dumb one by Dustin, and not a leader to follow by Jonathan. Now they’re following his plan, and the narrative has established they’ve been wrong about him due to their own insecurities and grief.

Dustin and Jonathan have also berated Steve for chasing Nancy, and I keep wondering why. Is it to show that he’s lying when he calls Nancy a “friend,” or show that those characters are wrong again and he’s come to terms with his love being unrequited?

It just feels like part of Steve’s arc this season is the gap between who he is and who he has been perceived to be, and I wonder where the Stancy of it all fits in this and if him redefining himself apart from his love for Nancy is where his growth lies.

[nakianshuri]

A part of vol 2 that just isn’t getting the attention it deserves imo is that the show has firmly reestablished the military under Dr. Kay as just as evil if not more so than Vecna.

She is trying to use Kali and potentially Eleven/Jane’s blood to breed a new army of child soldiers for the U.S. military. Season 3 and 4 took us away quite a bit from the domestic threat, focusing instead on the Russians. But since Brenner’s return, we’re back to seemingly a much more generally anti-military POV. We’re back in Hawkins Lab and to the idea that even if you vanquish the supernatural evil, you still have the human evil to face, whether that’s the Russian government or the U.S. government. And that seems much more difficult to defeat.

Perhaps the end of the Cold War might lessen the military threat against El, or, what’s more likely, the focus on terrorism in the 90s and onwards would give the military another incentive to revisit these “experiments.” Either way, I’m really curious to see how the show resolves this threat because I’m not seeing a way out of it.

[wardengrill]

The Lion in Winter (1968)